Greenhorn
by Deathcomes4u
Summary: A near fatal accident sees Hound pioneering the first use of mech to human transplant. It's only temporary, but it's effects will last him his whole function. Human!Hound. Explicit content and more than one humanxmech pairing, all cannon chars. One-shot.


_WARNINGS: STICKY, XENO, ALLUSIONS TO SPARK-PLAY, MASTURBATION ad some other slightly gross or squicky things. If you can't handle mech on human stuff, don't even bother reading.  
><em>

_This is one of those ideas_ _that came to me in the shower._

_If a Transformer really did find themselves human for some reason, the domestics alone would be cause for curiosity._

_This therefore is an exploration into the nitty-gritty realities of an alien experiencing humanity on the most basic level._

_When I wondered who i should turn into a human for greatest effect_, _Hound came to mind, because the scenarios for a mech like him would be very down to earth._

_This is a oneshot based on a premise, but it DID get sidetracked._

_I was going to use the TF_Rare_Pairing (LJ community) january challenge as an excuse to make me write this, and while it worked, it turned out unsuitable for the challenge simply because it was supposed to be a third person view on another pairing. I this case, Prowl and Chip._

_Instead it just includes them and other Autobots who've had intimate relations with humans._

_It's really Hound and HoundxMirage centric. And since thats banned from the Rare Pairing comm because it's super common, that decided it's fate to remain unsubmitted to the challenge._

_However, it is perfectly suitable as it's own oneshot on my account, so here it is._

_Also, I'm hoping the title explians itself, but incase it doesn't, a greenhorn is a word for someone who's basically a n00b. I believe it's usually used in reference to cowboys/cattle drovers, since green is the wcik colour of new growth and cattles have horns. Derp. In this case, it's because Hound is green ad he's a newb at being human._

_No, I don't know what i was high on when i titled it, but the name stuck, so deal with it.  
><em>

_Enjoy, I hope._

~_Death Out._

* * *

><p>"Whoa, Whoooooa take it easy there Hound."<p>

"Wh-whuu… Ra… Rashet?"

"Just relax. Your vocaliser isn't what you're used to. Actually, your body isn't what you're used to… No, no, stay still… STILL slaggit, I can't throw wrenches at you like this, just lie the frag down and let me brief you, alright? I don't need you blowing out that organic pump before we've got your body back in useable shape."  
>"Um… Ratchet, I don't think your approach is helping." Spike said gently, patting Hound's shoulder and urging him to lay back on the gurney. He gave him a reassuring smile.<p>

The large medic sighed and backed off a bit.

Hound, for his part, was grateful for Spike's comfort… but when he noticed just how BIG Ratchet was and how… normal sized Spike was… his mind started doing back flips, and it was hard to stay calm.

Then there was the fact his vocaliser wasn't obeying his commands properly.

It was like a completely different piece of equipment or something.

When he swallowed automatically, something seemed to click. Since when was his throat tubing so _wet?_

The… the feeling was WRONG. But it was RIGHT… at least, his body seemed to think it felt right, but his mind couldn't quite reconcile the systems it was registering. Like it was still trying to make sense of them.

"Hound, your body was severely damaged in the last fire-fight. Your spark chamber was so badly compromised… this was the only option to save you. We've transferred your consciousness… your spark energy, into a human body."

"Yeah… I know, I thought Wheeljack growing a body in a tank was totally creepy, but turns out it was just as well. It's the same process they used for me, but in reverse. Don't worry, it's temporary. I'm gonna help you adjust to being human while it lasts."

Spike gave his servo a reassuring squeeze.

And Primus, wasn't that just the _weirdest _feeling when his dermal covering gave to the pressure.

Not unpleasant, but he was NOT used to the material of his servos yielding in such an elastic manner.

He gave Spike what he hoped was a smile. _So many facial control lines… so much more complex than I'd thought._

No matter how strange he found this human body, the comfort from the gesture of friendship was effective.

* * *

><p>It surprised the tracker how easily he was able to accept his complete shift of species.<p>

But hey, he came from a race that boasted adaptability, he supposed it was his own kind of survival programming kicking in.

It was several hours before Hound got the hang of talking, and standing, and walking. Running he couldn't even contemplate yet.

He had NO idea how humans could use internal gyroscopic systems that couldn't even give him plain code feedback.

He'd been told the balancing mechanisms were in the joints, and overall were sort of guided by a main one I the head called the middle ear. Which was a bit silly, since it was not an audio related component so far as he knew.

Spike was a help he could not have done without, the young man guiding him with infinite patience.

It was not all smooth sailing though.

Hound, standing in the small apartment where human friends often stayed on the Ark, looked down at his legs and frowned in confusion.

"I think I had a malfunction… I sprung some kinda leak, that's not supposed to happen is it?"

Spike came out of the bedroom where he'd been making up the tracker's temporary berth… no, bed… hard to remember all the little differences…  
>"Oh, <em>Hound…<em> I… Uh _geeeez, _I TOLD you to tell me when you needed to deal with internal motions-"

The boy ran a servo- no, _hand- _over his face and through his hair, clearly exasperated.

Hound gave him an apologetic look, standing awkwardly with his shoulders tensed and arms out away from his body, as if afraid he'd get some of the liquid on the rest of him somehow.  
>"I'm sorry… I know you have a solid form of waste, I figured this other thing was muscles telling me to shunt fluids to a secondary… container, of some sort… <em>whoa… <em>Is that _supposed _to smell like that?"

He pointed to his own wet crotch, nose wrinkled.

Spike looked at him with a hand covering his mouth, straining not to laugh.

Despite how awkward it was to be dealing with a grown man ignorant of his own bodily functions, who was actually a being older than his civilisation, who had also just pissed himself… well, the face he was pulling was not something Spike ever thought an Autobot capable of.

It was certainly interesting to see how they adapted to having a greater ability to express emotion.

Even in organic bodies so different to their own, apparently Cybertronians never lost that adaptability streak.

Hound was imitating normal human behaviour like he'd been doing it all his life.  
>In fact, Spike had even caught him earlier, looking into a reflective surface and pulling faces at himself just to explore what he could do with a face full of forty-something muscles.<p>

"C'mon, go to the bathroom and get out of those pants, I'll get you a clean pair. Take a shower… works pretty much how the ones you normally use do except… actually… just go wait in the bathroom, I'll adjust the temperature, you won't be used to feeling that, I don't want you burning yourself."

Spike murmured as he rubbed the back of his head, sighing.

He never thought he'd have a job like this, not in a million years.

Hound shuffle uncomfortably into the small, tiled room, still frowning at his own crotch like he couldn't quite understand how it had malfunctioned so badly.

Spike shook his head and went back to the bedroom to get another set of clean clothes.

It was like looking after his cousin, except his cousin was six, and Hound was… easily the weirdest big kid he'd ever had to baby-sit.

Once Spike had set the shower running at a good temperature, he'd left Hound to his own devices (albeit with a warning about being careful with his footing… which he was grateful to be reminded of, because human pedes… _feet, _had no auto-locking or super-grip mechanisms, which he kept forgetting).

Actually, they seemed terribly precarious to him, even though the young man had told him he had unusually large feet for a human.

He chose to take it as a compliment on his ability to balance. Big feet meant good weight distribution, good balance… at least, for a Cybertronian.

He was getting used to being organic though. His sense of smell was better, apparently, than the average human. But it still felt dull compared to what he had in his normal body.

Smells though… they completely WARPED when you were human.

The tracker sniffed at the soap in the dish on the wall to clear his nose of the stench of urine. (HIS urine… and Primus was he ever glad his waste material as a mech was not half as foul as human waste smells were).

The peeled off clothing was in a pile in the sink, where he'd run the tap over them per Spike's instructions. It would help get rid of the smell until they could get them in the washing machine.

Mindful of his lacking grip on the floor with the bare skin of his feet, Hound stepped beneath the spray of the shower and nearly jumped.

Primus! The SENSATION! Water… water had never FELT like this before, not even between the gaps in his armour or over bared wires and protoform…

How _weird…_

Maybe it had to do with his body being comprised mostly of the substance, but it sure felt wonderful on his plati-…skin.

Skin, yea. And the nerves in the flesh… oh yea, they liked the contact of water.

Moreso in some areas than others. Well… it figured humans would have nerve clusters the same way Cybertronians had node clusters.

Hound decided he might as well have some fun finding out where they were… for safety purposes, of course.

Had to know his weak or sensitive points in case he was attacked.

Yep.

That was totally the reason he eventually ended up playing with his human interfacing equipment.

It seemed by far to be the most sensitive part of him.

And he had to admit to himself… even as a mech he'd wondered what interface was like for organics.

After all, they didn't overload. But SOMETHING happened, something called an orgasm, that much he knew, and he couldn't NOT find out what that was like.

Not with a golden opportunity like the one he had.

It was surprisingly easy too… all the things he did with his spike seemed to translate well to his human… penis, that was the word.

That was all well and good. He pressurised quickly, and he was highly amused by the squishyness of both his human cable and his hand on it.

What REALLY fascinated him was the testicles.

The Cybertronian frame didn't really have an equivalent for them.

Well, there was the transfluid reservoir, which he guessed was as close in function, but it would never be housed outside the frame, and even if it was… there was no reason for it to be sensitive. It was not a vital component to survival or wellbeing, strictly speaking.

Hound gasped and rubbed his top dentas, no, teeth… his top teeth over his lip… human terms were kinda fun… as he stroked gently over the soft skin encasing the organs that were critical to human reproduction.

The skin over them was not as sensitive as the areas where they joined his body though.

There was hair down there as well, lots of it, and much more scratchy than the stuff on his head.

He wasn't all that interested in the hair, though he wasn't sure he liked it.

As he got bolder in his self exploration though, he stopped caring about the texture of his organic keratin strands.

Reaching further with his wandering digits, he found an orifice. Grimacing, remembering what it was for, he withdrew his hand and went back to lightly squeezing and rubbing the skin of his scrotum and shaft of his penis.

Trying to remain as quiet as possible, he sped up his ministrations and looked down, gasping shakily as his overload… his _orgasm, _surprised him.

It was… the same, yet still so alien.

Delicious pleasure, a chemical reaction, but a warm tingling through his nerves… accompanied by involuntary muscle contraction and the familiar expression of fluid from his shaft.

He rubbed it gently as he came down, sinking to sit on the floor of the shower.

When the haze of endorphin induced pleasure subsided a little, something occurred to him.

And it was a mood killer.

He stopped stroking his penis and held it so he could look critically down at it's tip.

White, translucent substance still welled at the slit where the semen had been ejaculated.

But… wasn't that also where he expressed urine from?

It bothered him all the way out of the shower and into fresh clothes, until he had a chance to talk to his organic guide.

"Hey… Spike?"

"Yea Hound?"

"Can I ask you a… well, it's probably gonna sound inappropriate, but I'm still not a hundred percent on human body systems and functions."

"Shoot Hound, I can take whatever questions you got. I've answered pretty much EVERYTHING before, Bumblebee was always as curious of me as I was of him. And then there was Blaster, who never shied away from ANY questions."

"Why is a penis the means for expelling waste AND reproduction? Isn't that a bit… unhealthy? What if males express waste into the reproductive ports of females?… It just, I can't get my processor around it, it's dreadful-"

"Whooooaaaa, Hound, heh… that's one heck of a question… y'know, I had to read up on all my old health Ed' stuff before agreeing to be your guide for this. There's a simple answer for that one."

He sat on the couch, gesturing for Hound to sit opposite him in the armchair.

"You know how Ratchet explained how humans have organic systems similar to your base programming protocols?"

The tracker nodded, leaning back into the seat and quietly enjoying the squishy softness.

"Well, we've got automatic… systems, I guess. It's kind of like a shut-off valve between the waste systems and the reproductive ones. When one is active, the other is supposed to stay offline. That's what stops us… releasing waste into our partners. God I don't even wanna think about that, it's gross."

Hound gave a nervous laugh, squirming slightly in his seat. "Yea… sorry about… before, y'know. Releasing the waste valve. I'll remember to do that into the receptacle thing next time. Toilet, right?"

"Yeah. Don't sweat it Hound, Ratch told me this process wouldn't be easy for you. I know your Cybertronian systems don't make anything near as much waste as humans do. Bee told me how you guys get rid of it and stuff. Still not sure I can handle the idea of how you guys separate out and recycle oil from your own bodies."

Hound chuckled, something which he hadn't even had to think about figuring out how to do. It seemed to be pre-programmed into human systems. Something he found somewhat poignant.

"Oh, see… now I can understand why that weirds you out. I don't think I'd wanna use recycled human waste now I'm a human, even if it was good for something else."

"Hound, what on earth are you doing?"

"Oh, hiya Carly! Oh.. Sorry, is this an inappropriate human behaviour?"

The tracker looked wary and apologetic, pausing in poking at his own chest.

The blonde laughed softly.

"No, not really… I just don't understand why you're poking at your pec muscles."

"Oh, good. I still don't know a lot about the nuances of human social behaviour. It's funny, cause I know LOTS about animal social behaviours, but I only just realised I never studied humans in the same way!"

"Soooo why ARE you poking at your chest?"

"OH!, Right, I'm just getting used to the shape of it. Cause y'know… usually I've got a big Jeep hood there, and a grill, and my tow cable, and a couple layers of armour between the world and my spark casing. It's kinda nice to not have a bumper in the way, but… I feel sorta vulnerable."

He frowned down at his chest again and poked hard between his pecs, feeling his sternum as if to reassure himself it was solid enough to protect his insides.

"Ah, well… welcome to humanity I guess. You always knew we were fragile things, but it's not too bad, really. Just don't pick fights with anything of a denser mineral composition than yourself and you should be fine."

Hound looked up at her smiling face and gave her a slightly shrewd look. "Says the woman who's been known to insult Decepticons to their face-plates."

Carly laughed again, and the sound sent a tingle up his spine in a way it hadn't when he was a mech.

"Touché. I guess I should rephrase… don't pick fights with denser mineral compositions unless you have friends of the same or denser structure who can back you up… or legs you can run with really, really fast."

Hound laughed at that one, forgetting his insecurities over his physiology, at least for the moment.

"In that case, I probably shouldn't go calling 'Screamer a two-bit cog sucking glitch mouse any time soon, cause I still don't quite have running down yet. Pe- feet work so different to what I'm used to. They have so much flex in them-"

The tracker paused mid sentence, looked around curiously, sniffing the air, and then raised his own arm, sniffing along it.

Carly watched with a confused sort of amusement until Hound seemingly found what he'd been smelling for in his armpit, looking up at her with excitement.

"Hey! I'm giving off pheromones! Isn't that neat? I didn't even do anything and my systems reacted… hey, wait, it must be you Carly… I had no idea those systems were so involuntary in humans, most mammals do it on purpose and… Carly?"

The young woman found it very hard to answer, doubled up with laughter.

* * *

><p>"Are you SURE you want to try this, Hound?"<p>

The tracker levelled Spike with a serious look.

"If I'm gonna be human, I should eat like humans do. I mean like MOST humans do. Vegetables and plant matter are fine and all, but your physiology is BUILT to intake flesh protein."

"We thought you'd be too grossed out by that to want to eat meat." Carly said curiously.

Hound shifted, resolute façade breaking slightly.

"Well… it sort of _does_… but it's the natural way for you guys. If I'd had to be turned into… a lion, or something, I wouldn't have a choice. Their fuel is other animals. YOUR fuel is other animals. I don't think I should go against the natural order."

Carly snorted slightly, stifling her laugh. "Sorry Hound… but a robot as a human is already a little bit against the natural order."

Hound had to concede that point to her with a sheepish nod.

"Of course you have a choice though. Heck, Vegetarians are everywhere nowadays. They CHOOSE not to eat meat, since they don't like the idea of eating other living creatures." Spike shrugged.

Hound frowned, as if slightly irritated.

"Well that's sorta silly, since plants are living organisms too. They aren't the same kind of organism as mammals, but Perceptor did some pretty convincing research on how they have their own form of consciousness… anyway, point is, I think I should at least TRY meat. It's not like by not eating it I prevent humans from killing animals. Meat's still going to be made whether I eat it or not, and… well, I'm curious about the taste anyhow I guess."

"Alright, then we'll cook you some. What kind of meat did you want to try?" Carly asked curiously, leaning on the back of the couch Spike was sitting on.

Hound gave it some considered thought, tapping his stubbly chin lightly with a finger.

"Hmmmm… I think… I wanna try deer."

Both of the other humans made faces in surprise.

"_Deer?_ You mean Venison? Why pick that?" Spike asked in confusion.

The tracker looked suddenly unsure. "Was that a bad thing to pick?"

"No no, it's just… sort of a specialist taste is all. I mean, it's not rare or weird but… why deer exactly?" Carly tilted her head a little.

Hound shifted slightly in the armchair, still feeling like he may have put a foot wrong.

"Because Chickens, Turkeys, Pigs, Lamb and Cows are… are… _cute. _And Cows are a bit sentient I think. Deer… not that deer aren't clever in their own way, but, geez… I've had THAT many of them run out in front of me on the road when I go hiking, it's like they WANT to die. I know they don't, they just panic too easy. Anyway, they are a more… natural prey, if that makes sense? It's what humans used to hunt a lot back when you mastered fire. I wanted to get a really grass-roots sort of experience."

And so it came to be that Hound ended up sitting at a table in the apartment with Spike, Carly and Sparkplug, with a dish of venison steak and cooked vegetables in front of him.

He cut up his steak, aware of the curious, sidelong looks towards him.

The texture of cutting through cooked flesh was, at first, highly disturbing. But he reminded himself it was not the same as his own flesh.

He'd smelt human flesh burning (and wasn't THAT a memory he wished he didn't have) and it was nothing like the smell of cooking animal meat.

Eventually the feel of cutting it bothered him less and less, until the moment came to try it firsthand.

He swallowed compulsively, dipping a small piece of the meat in the red-wine sauce Sparkplug had carefully prepared.

Raising the fork to his mouth, he took the meat off it with his teeth and began to chew slowly.

The other humans had openly stopped paying attention to their own meals to watch, apprehensive of the Cybertronian's reaction.

After he'd swallowed, Hound analysed the taste in his mouth with a thoughtful look.

"I like it."

The tension broke, and Sparkplug grinned. "Thought you would. This is a recipe I got from my Grandma, bless her soul. Best Venison cook this side of the state. Got a lot more recipes I can try out on you Hound."

"I've been wondering Hound. I know you said you didn't want to eat any of the other animals we usually use for meat, cause you think they're cute. But I'm curious to know what your definition of 'cute' is. I get why with lambs, and maybe cows, but chickens and turkeys?" Carly asked conversationally, sampling some of the baked potato.

Hound finished the piece of meat in his mouth before answering, aware by now at least that trying to speak with his mouth full was a no-no.

"Well… I suppose it's the roundness. And the feathers. And the way they move. That funny little head bobbing thing they do because of how their tension cables formed during evolution. It makes me happy watching them."

"Is there anything you eat or… well, intake, in your normal body, that tastes like what we eat?" Sparkplug asked, picking up a few beans on his fork.

"Hmmmm… actually… Cybertronians detect trace elements and minerals by their taste. I can still detect the same things as a human, but organic taste receptors seem to work on different principles. What's good for me as a mech, is not so good for me as a human. Raw sulphur is akin to a sweet and sour taste to Cybertronians… if I ate it as a human, it'd kill me, so to you it probably tastes bad. Meat… meat's got a higher iron content, and I can taste it, but it's oxidised, so it's kinda like a rust stick, but without as much tang."

"Boy, I'd love to see the look on some of the other Autobot's faces seeing you eat venison." Spike chimed in mischievously with a grin.

Hound grinned back. "Ooooh, I daresay we could have some fun with that."

* * *

><p>Two weeks felt like half a vorn to Hound (and didn't THAT just confuse the slag out of him), and he'd become almost a natural at being human. Or so he liked to think.<p>

He still liked his old hangouts, and since his fleshy vacation (as Sideswipe had come to call it) prevented him from being on duty, he spent a lot of time in the rec room.

The first two days milling around the base had consisted of a lot of bad jokes and poking, giving him a new appreciation for what their human companions had put up with in their first encounters with his kind.

Eventually the novelty had worn off and he had once again become just another member of the crew.

Albeit a member who needed lifts on other mech's servos or shoulders.

He was very wary of his fragility around his friends… he trusted them completely, since they all had enough experience with Spike, Carly and Chip to be experts at human handling, but nevertheless, he winced internally when he remembered how easily human bones could fracture.

He'd tried jumping down from a table, to a chair, to the floor, and decided after Chip told him it took six months to heal a fracture that it wasn't worth it.

Of course, he decided that AFTER he'd jumped off the table and done a break-fall onto a seat.

Primus that had HURT. He knew humans had a low pain threshold compared to Cybertronians but WOW. The parkour guys he'd seen on Teletrann made it look so easy.

Chip had explained that they had been practicing long enough to build up a resistance, their muscles and bones conditioned to their training.

Ratchet had, of course, reamed him out for even trying. He was lucky he hadn't broken anything. A few pulled muscles was the worst of it, but even that lingered annoyingly.

Hound readily accepted lifts from other bots after that, swearing off the acrobatics.

The massage he got from Carly to help ease the aching was WONDERFUL though. He finally understood what humans were on about when they talked of the therapeutic benefits of the practice.

Spike had been oddly unhappy looking when Carly had treated him, but he'd perked right up when Carly finished on Hound and started on him.

Hound guessed Spike must have been due for the maintenance on his muscles, because he cheered right up when Carly was done with him.

Currently, the tracker was sitting on a table, Mirage beside him in a chair, sipping from his cube.

Hound had to admit, while human food was a whole other world of fascination for him (boy was the sense of TASTE a whole other ball game for organics), he still missed energon.

And of course, it was rather toxic to humans, so he couldn't touch the stuff.

"I still can't believe you're going through with that bet"

Hound grinned up at his company, wondering if Mirage knew his vocaliser still sent shivers of pleasure down his spine when he spoke… just MORE SO now he had a body with sensors all over it's surface.

"Aw c'mon 'Raj, it's not gonna be that bad. Eggs are just a by-product, they ain't even alive."

"They're full of gelatinous protein goop. They're a reproductive mechanism, a FAILED one, why would you want to _eat _one?" Mirage pulled a face to show his distaste.

Hound shrugged, playing with the white servo resting on the table beside him.

"'Cause Sparkplug says they taste good. He's gonna try me on a boiled one, apparently they're a bit easier to get used to than when they're still in a goopy state."

"What on earth possessed the first human to even try eating those things? In what way do they say to people 'I'm a fuel source!" the spy said rather wryly, engine purring as he flexed his digit's a little wider to allow Hound's small hands access to the joints.

He could barely stand the idea of any organic cell matter getting into his joints but… because it was Hound, well, he found he could tolerate it. ONLY because it was Hound.

"Hunger probably did. It's a really strange feeling, hunger. It's like you've got a tank malfunction, and it effects your moods worse as an organic than low energy reserves do in a mech body. The satisfaction from filling up is about the same though." the man shrugged, easing his lover's joints by flexing them gently, the equivalent of a massage for the noble since his servos were delicate instruments.

They watched the rest of the rec room a little more, Mirage taking in his lover's appearance, such as it was.

He was a very average sort of human. Nothing as distinctive in that species as he was in his own. Plain brown hair, beard growing rapidly across his face since the body had been kicked into life to house him.

Muscles undefined, a basic healthy layer of flesh and fatty deposits (because Wheeljack had engineered the baseline to perfection… funny how it seemed a somewhat rare shape for a human, when it was supposed to be their average). His proportions were roughly symmetrical, he'd proven himself ambidextrous, another apparently rare trait in humans, but his fitness was minimal.

Overall, Mirage new human Hound would never be featured in any popular media for how he looked. He was plain. Actually, he was rather boring in appearance.

But Mirage could still see in his eyes (the brownness of which still unsettled him a little) that Hound himself was unchanged by the body.

He was the same caring, happy, compassionate spark.

That above everything else served to deepen the spy's love and affection for the tracker.

Hound's helm turned when Prowl entered the rec room, talking rather enthusiastically to a human in his servo.

Chip was easily distinguishable by his wheelchair, and quite as absorbed in the Tactician as Prowl was in him.

The SIC went through the motions of procuring a ration before he headed for a table in the corner, where he settled his companion on the table surface.

Chip had noted he wasn't the only human in the room, and only when he looked over and waved at Hound and Mirage did Prowl seem to notice them as well, nodding a greeting.

"I have a much greater appreciation for Chip's abilities now, I tell ya." Hound admitted to his companion quietly.

Mirage tilted his helm. "Don't you mean disabilities?"

"Nope. Hah, he's more able than me. He let me try out that chair of his the other orn. I'm a weakling compared to him. My arms were aching after a couple off micromechanometers. I couldn't even do a lap of this room in that thing if I tried. He wheels around in it all day, no sweat." Hound admitted, shaking his head a little with a grin.

Mirage looked with a little more appreciation between the wheelchair bound human and Hound, noting the wiry muscularity of Chip's arms compared to Hound's own undefined appendages.

"Ah… I understand. He has developed the ability out of necessity. I always forget how adaptable humans are. They all seem to have frames that specialise as much as ours."

"Yea, except mine of course. Heh, it's just a blank slate keeping me alive." the tracker was leaning on the noble's servo, looking down at his body. "But I gotta admit, the experience is fascinating. Especially the bits where I get to observe human interaction firsthand. I mean… until I smelt Chip yesterday when he and Prowl were talking, I had no idea they were hot on each other."

Mirage nearly spat out his energon, managing to compose himself once he'd sorted out his intake and made sure none had gone through his olfactory vents.

"What in the name of Primus are you talking about?"

Hound gave him a slightly lascivious look, tapping his nose. "I might be an organic right now, but I can still process smell better than most humans. The amount of pheromones that boy was giving off in Prowl's presence yesterday was exactly like Spike's reactions around Carly. He's sweet on him, and you know what, the way Prowl talks to him? I'm willing to bet it's requited."

There were several long moments of silence while Mirage processed this information, secretly honing his attention on the pair in the corner without making it look obvious.

"Frag… why do you have to be right. How has no one been seeing this? Especially ME, I'm espionage, I should have noticed."

Hound glanced at the human and Praxian, both absorbed in each other, paying the rest of the room no attention.

Prowl's door wings were even _fluttering._

He shrugged. "I don't know when it started, but seems like it's been going on a while now. And y'know… they got me wondering about something…"

"If you're about to try talking me into committing acts of xenophilia-"

"Aw c'mon Raj, how bad can it be? I might be small, but I'm sure I can still make it good for you."

"That's not what I'm worried about-"

"Pleeeeease Raj?"

The noble gave him a slightly pained look, disturbed a little by the wetness of the eyes gazing up at him pleadingly. He vented a soft sigh.

"I'll THINK about it."

* * *

><p>"I can't… I just can't believe it's that HARD for you guys!… Why do ANY of you do it?"<p>

Hound flopped down into the camper chair, panting and sore all over.

They had been hiking. One of his favourite pass-times as a mech.

As a Human, he had discovered he _loathed _it.

He was wet, hungry, aching, bleeding, dirty, smelly and covered in itches.

He'd slipped on rocks, grazed his hands and knees, fallen in mud, been stung by a bee, and bitten by countless mosquitoes.

When you weren't metal, the great outdoors sure seemed against you.

"We do it to reconnect with nature, experience the great outdoors, all that stuff you always said you wished you could feel when you were a bot." Carly said cheerily.

"How can you connect with nature when all it wants to do is make you feel like slag?" the man-mech whined, trying to move his feet into a position were he couldn't feel the throb of his blisters quite so badly.

"It's not that bad really, you're just not used to the vulnerabilities of your body to the elements."

Spike grinned, seemingly immensely pleased that he could bush-wack with ease compared to the completely buggered man who was supposedly a master hiker.

"Plus I told you you'd need that repellent, but you just WOULDN'T have it." Carly chided, sitting down casually in her own camper-chair and tossing Hound some water.

The tracker caught it with over-sharp reflexes. The first time she'd casually thrown him something, he'd missed catching it and it had hit him in the groin.

Now THAT was an experience he would NEVER like to repeat.

"I can't stand the smell of that stuff, it's just too strong, it makes me feel… off."

"You mean sick. That's what you get for being too good at smelling things." Spike snickered, rummaging through his backpack for his own water.

"If I didn't smell things properly, I wouldn't be called 'Hound' would I? I'd be called 'Robot who can smell things at a level average for a Cybertronian', and that's not as catchy. Uuugh, I can't stand this mud, it's itchy when it dries, and it's drying over mosquito bites, so they're even ITCHIER… how can humans STAND that sensation?"

The frustrated novice organic scratched at his legs roughly, prompting Carly to poke him.

"Hey, better go easy there, you'll break the skin and scab and get scars."

"Doesn't really matter, I'm not gonna be in this body forever. Thankfully." Hound grumbled.

"Pff, you make it sound like a rent-a-body." Spike laughed, putting his chair beside Carly's after finishing his water and going to the cooler they'd stored in Carly's car to grab a beer.

"Reminds me of them. Except they never made organic models on Cybertron."

"What? You mean they actually HAD rent-a-bodies on Cybertron?" far from horrified, Carly sounded fascinated.

"Yea kinda, but they weren't public vessels or anything. You didn't just change into a temporary frame when you felt like it and had the creds. NPF's… non-personal frames that is, were generally state owned and utilised for special forces like emergency response or enforcers. Prowl's in a de-commissioned NPF. He's had his heavily modified though. Mechs that worked for the state had their sparks transferred into frames they didn't own, so they didn't damage their original bodies in the line of duty."

"Soooo, it was like getting a company car with the salary?" Spike said with a grin, quite as interested as Carly.

Hound huffed out a laugh. "Yea, I guess it kinda was. Like a company car and a uniform rolled into one thing. Prowl never left the enforcers, he just took possession of the frame when his was destroyed in the fall of Praxus. Same with Smokescreen, but Bluestreak's in his because it was all they had on hand to fix him into when they pulled him out and his body was… well, kinda like what happened to me to put me in this body."

"So… wait, Prowl is still wearing a uniform, but Smokescreen isn't and Bluestreak never did?" the blonde asked in slight confusion.

Hound nodded, swatting at another insect trying to bite him.

"Prowl modified his uniform slightly to fit with the local equivalent, but it's funny how the black and white scheme was already similar. Some colour principals are universal it seems. Smokescreen wasn't the same sort of division as Prowl in the first place, and he had no obligation to keep his uniform, so he didn't. Bluestreak got whatever paint they had enough of lying around when he was transferred into it. They had grey, but not enough for his whole frame, so they had to use some charcoal colour and accented with red because that's what colour he used to be, and they had a little bit left."

"So… he never used to be blue?" Spike asked seriously.

Hound snickered. "He used to have ONE blue accent, and it was a stripe that ran down the centre of his alt-mode. He never got it re-done when the colour was available because Sunstreaker said it would ruin his colour scheme. Plus, he figured his speech habits backed the name up well enough on their own."

"So, since we got to have some Cybertronian story time, does this mean we get to tell everyone back at base just how bad a hiker you make without your armour?"

Carly's voice was all sweetness ad innocence, but Hound sent her a death glare that could not have been more reminiscent of Ratchet, even in his mech form.

"You say a word about me falling in a river because a rabbit scared me and I can promise you I will not be saving you from Perceptor's earth and human biology inquisitions ever again. I might be human now, but I still have my reputation to keep."

* * *

><p>"I still can't believe I'm doing this"<p>

"You've done it before more times than either of us can count."

"Yes, but you weren't tiny, or squishy, and you sure as pit did not have testicles."

Hound laughed, then moaned as a large, warm glossa teased his genitals.

"Mmmmm, feels the same though… and I gotta say, I'm getting a huge size kink here."

Mirage snickered and poked his lover's tiny, squishy spike, making him twitch.

He was a little afraid of hurting Hound, and if he was being honest, his form was not nearly as arousing as when he was a mech. The sounds he made were just as beautiful though.

The noble found himself trying to make him louder, working the alien interface equipment until his lover overloaded.

The act actually sort of amused him. Such a lot of effort for a short burst of pleasure and tiny burst of human transfluid. Hound was usually arching, charge racing across his frame and crackling alongside the hard whirr of vents, the rev of his engine, throb of his spark and EM field.

Humans were just so… _quiet _in overload.

Mirage knew they didn't think they all were, if their pornography was anything to go by, but they had no idea what Cybertronians were used to.

When they climaxed, it was a _proper _release.

Nevertheless, he was pleased to have Hound reclining in a very satisfied manner against him.

"Mmmm your turn love" the tracker pressed his chest against him, rubbing a small, warm hand over his nosecone, scratching at it.

Mirage hummed in pleasure and moved to lay back with Hound atop him, a servo against the soft, curved back.

"Are you sure that's wise? I mean, you could probably fit your whole arm up my valve, but I'd be worried my callipers might break it. And transfluid CAN'T be good for organic dermal covering."

The spy gave his lover a dubious look.

Hound merely smiled back slyly.

"Ooooh, I know for a fact it's perfectly safe for humans. I mean, we can't ingest it, but it's not caustic like energon."

Mirage gave him a shrewd, calculating look.

"How EXACTLY do you know this?"

Hound wriggled down the ligier's frame, rubbing both hands over the nosecone as if massaging it, his lover shivering as the warmth and odd pressure teased his sensors.

"I got a little… curious about Prowl and Chip. It was kind of an accident though. They didn't know I was in Prowl's office waiting for him to come back so I could ask him some questions… he came in, but walked right through, didn't even see me, and had Chip with him. They went through to his quarters I a hurry, and I was thinking something might be wrong."

Mirage shuttered his optics. "You followed them into Prowl's quarters, didn't you?"

Hound chuckled, hands tracing seams and making his lover squirm.

"Naw, not really. Prowl didn't bother closing the door to his quarters. I peeked around the frame. I tell ya, they didn't waste any time. They're… sweet together, though. And Prowl sure knows his way around a human's frame. Mind you, Chip seems to know full well where the best sensors are in a spike."

Mirage opened his shutters to level an incredulous (if not slightly heated) look at the tracker.

"And you just stood there and _watched _ the whole thing?"

"Hey now, don't give me that look Mr. Invisibility. I wanted to walk away, but… it was kinda hypnotising… plus it was answering my questions anyway. And I realised something, you know. I never thought humans would ever be able to really be 'involved' with Cybertronians. They can't uplink with us. They can't interface fully with us. But then I remembered, Prowl and Chip only started hanging out after that incident where Chip took control of Prowl when he was damaged. Trust plays such a HUGE role between those two… Chip trusts Prowl to keep his cool and control when they're together. And Prowl trusts Chip enough to let him right under his plating. I thought that was pretty incredible."

"Do you mean under his plating metaphorically or… nnn… physically?" Mirage asked, tone low and husky, despite the topic not being much of a turn on to him at all. His interface panel snicked open behind Hound, and the tracker eagerly moved to settle himself between white metal thighs, demonstrating the same sort of trust in his lover that he was speaking of.

The significance of the conversation in relation to what they were doing was not at all lost on Mirage.

"Literally. I mean, I didn't stick around once Prowl opened his chest plates, and I didn't see his spark casing even, but I KNOW he was letting Chip touch it. That's a BIG thing. For us AND humans. It made me realise that it doesn't even matter how different we are physically, socially, technologically… on a personal level, we can find common ground, and when we can find trust, we can relate to humans as easily as any of our own kind. It's… It's a nice thought. And I'm glad Chip and Prowl have that together. I am ALSO glad Chip accidentally taught me this one trick I'd find difficult as a mech."

Hound crouched out of Mirage's sight, arms outstretched to press flat against the inside of each thigh.

Mirage cried out and jolted when pleasure suddenly shot through him from the entrance to his valve.

"AH! W-what… Did you just BITE the platelets on my port?"

He heard a chuckle between his thighs and squeaked as it happened again.

"I can't even hurt ya with these flimsy enamel things, but I can make ya feel good. Interface lubricant isn't toxic to me even if I do ingest a little. I went to Wheeljack to confirm the safeties and stuff of course. I can also do this…"

Mirage whimpered as he felt the warm, soft hands of his lover's human form press against both sides of the platelets, inside and out, and rub them.

Hound worked around his valve, teasing deliciously, tugging the platelets and pressing them hard between his palms.

It was minimal stimulation, but the tease and knowledge of who it was had Mirage's charge climbing steadily anyway.

Hound's attentions eventually turned to his spike, and he used his teeth to bite the tip of the hub as it began to emerge.

The ministrations were pinpoint and quite exotic.

"Ooooooh… OK… I admit, I can see the attraction for Prowl…Ah~" Mirage murmured, legs quivering as he locked them from closing.

Hound moved up onto his lover's pelvis again, wrapping himself around the pressurised spike and hugging it, running his arms up and down. It was hard work for him, and tiring, but the sounds Mirage made egged him on, and the ache in his muscles was worth it.

When he raked his nails down the underside of the pliable spike sheathing, biting at the topside, Mirage came with a cry, arching off the berth, and Hound rode the cable like it was a rodeo.

Transfluid spattered over him, but far from minding, Hound found it… well, to be honest, it was arousing as slag. That AND the zip of sensation that had travelled through him from his lover's overload.

"Damn, I really do have a size kink now."

"Nnnnn… I must admit… I liked seeing you covered in my transfluid before, but now I can cover nearly all of you at once."

Hound released Mirages spike to turn and look at the smirking noble. "Well, you usually like to clean it off manually too… eager to try that now?"

"Only on one part of you that looks like it could use some oral attention again" Mirage raised an orbital ridge, poking at Hound's obvious erection.

The tracker murmured eagerly at the thought. There was something to be said for a large pair of lip-plates as beautiful as Mirage's rubbing over his soft, fleshy spike.

He suspected it was as much a thrill from the knowledge those metallic lips could do his intimate parts a lot of damage if Mirage wasn't careful, quite as much as it was just the stimulation of it.

He didn't want the damage, but the fact it was a bit dangerous was exciting.

I the end though he trusted Mirage would never actually cause him damage on purpose.

"Mmmm no, much as I love you Hound, I'm really not keen on taking that in my mouth once it's expressed it's fluid. I have… something a little more intimate in mind after what you described before."

Hound's eyes widened as Mirage split open his chest-plates.

They had shown each other their sparks before, but this was, to Hound, quite obviously a show of Mirage's trust in him.

The noble only really _tolerated_ him in his organic form. The tracker wasn't fooling himself that Mirage actually garnered any true pleasure from his squishy, fragile body. He knew he hated human skin oils on his plating as it was, but to offer him his spark while he was in that form…

It spoke more volumes to Hound than anything else they had shared.

He moved up the ligier's body again, and Mirage cupped him to his chest, sitting up slightly so Hound wouldn't have gravity pulling him down into his open chest-plating.

Hound discovered that night, just how far human and Cybertronian intimacy could go.

* * *

><p>Hound sat at his favourite table with Mirage, both at optic level again, both holding their own cube of energon. The transfer back to his proper body had gone without a hitch.<p>

The Jeep was distracted now though, and Mirage let him be, not demanding his attention while he knew what weighed on his processor.

The tracker watched Chip, Spike, Carly and Raoul interacting with Bumblebee and Tracks.

Both mechs knew how to handle themselves around humans, but even their experience didn't match Hound's first-hand knowledge now.

Mechs didn't treat him any differently than they had before, but Hound felt like a completely different bot.

When he walked, he noticed all the differences in how his joints functioned compared to his human body.

When he talked, it sounded like it wasn't him, even though his vocaliser settings had not changed.

And he caught himself trying not to get too close to others as he passed them in the halls before remembering they couldn't step on him.

Ratchet had said it wouldn't take long to go back to normal, that it was all understandable since he'd been stuck a human for a whole month (and in human body clock terms, that felt equivalent to a full year now he was a bot again. One of the mystery side-effects of his change he could not explain. Time and how it passed was something he would never be able to reconcile between his original and organic states).

Slag, he would even run a servo over his plating, expecting to feel hair, and getting a small shock when he only found smooth metal.

How had his processor calibrations changed so much in so short a time?

Analysing his emotions on the matter, he couldn't say he MISSED being human exactly. Some things were a relief to feel again, like the solidity of his armour over his spark, the rev of his engine rather than the odd squelch-throb of a heart, and the taste of energon… Ooooh, as much as he'd enjoyed testing the range of his organic tastebuds, that first sip of fuel had been the true coming home. It was more comforting than any hot meal prepared by Sparkplug (not to say the man was a bad cook, but Hound preferred his energy source liquid and charged).

But there WAS a certain feeling of… loss.

Wheeljack had mentioned that the mass of his spark was smaller by an almost completely negligible amount.

Nonetheless, it WAS smaller.

His human self had, for all intents and purposes, _died. _And it had taken a little bit of him with it.

They were not going to bury the body, and Wheeljack was not going to put it back in it's growth tank, but preserve it elsewhere to study the effects his occupation had had on it.

Seeing his human form after waking up a mech again had been slightly creepy. For starters, he hadn't realised just HOW hairy he'd been, but then he hadn't let Spike come near him with any kind of razor, not even an electric one.

Actually, he'd been very blade-phobic during the whole experience, expecting his skin to be too fragile to handle such treatment, despite knowing humans used razors on themselves all the time.

Even Cybertronians were not immune to sharp metal in the wrong places, so what chance, he had figured, did his human body stand?

In the end, he didn't really care how hairy he'd been, because it was a relief not to have to wash said hair anymore.

Or express solid waste. Oh PRIMUS he would NEVER miss that.

He WOULD miss showers the way humans felt them, but he guessed he could always try turning up sensor receptiveness in the wash racks at some stage.

On the subject of testing frame changes to feel something akin to what humans could, he wasn't sure how comfortable he was about Perceptor grilling him for recounts of his experiences in detail… ALL his experiences.

Sure, it was for science, and it may well prove invaluable in furthering Cybertronian and human relations, but… well… some of it was stuff he wasn't sure he wanted to admit to ANYONE. No matter how good the cause.

As Hound watched Carly and Spike, he picked up things he'd never have even thought of before. The way Carly played with Spike's hand, fussed over his hair, the _looks _they gave one another.

Now he knew what that would feel like. Why it was important to humans, and the chemical cues that went with the whole thing.

They were very nearly equivalent to a bonded couple sometimes. Or at least, they were on their way to that.

He even viewed their clothes in a new light. How certain fabrics felt to skin explained why Spike wore them. How certain fabrics and colours appeared to human eyes, the significance of their texture, weight, and ability to hold heat against the skin… all this minutiae he now understood, and the messages he could read in it.

It went beyond what they wore ad how they acted. It was the involuntary facial expressions too. Details on the smallest scale, the pitch of a voice, the rate of the heart and breathing.

And all the things humans surrounded themselves with. Things that seemed silly and inconsequential to Cybertronians he'd realised were tiny, invaluable tools. There were so MANY of them, and all so specialised.

His kind were used to making multi-task tools, but humans couldn't build them into their bodies.

When he was amoung them, it all suddenly made much more sense.

It was almost frustrating, to be the only Cybertronian who could truly appreciate it, read it, respond to it. It was like a joke only he was privy to, or a language no one of his species could speak with him.

Of course, if he gave Perceptor all the information he wanted, he might have someone else who could understand it all on the same level… but Perceptor would still lack the experience.

Overall, he knew his view of the world would forever be coloured by the human condition.

He was glad to be back in his own body.

Especially when he turned his helm to look at Mirage again. Playing together in his organic form had been interesting, to say the least. It had certainly brought them closer on an emotional level. But it could never quite equal the way they connected in their rightful bodies.

And maybe… just maybe, when they found that their sparks couldn't stand being without a permanent link, he would finally have Mirage to share his experience… to speak his language, and get the joke no one else understood.

The entrance of Optimus and Prowl made Hound turn his helm. The Prime caught his optic and motioned he would be coming to sit with them once he had a cube.

Prowl also nodded in his direction, and cheekily, Hound looked between him and Chip in the corner and directed a wink and a thumbs up to the tactician.

The tracker snickered when Prowl's wings flicked and he gave him a puzzled, if not slightly wary look in return.

Mirage smacked him lightly on the arm as Hound stifled his giggles. "You're terrible. Don't you say a WORD to anyone about them, they'll be public when both our species are ready for that."

"Yea yea 'Raj, I know. Hell, I'm probably going to be their biggest supporter. You and I are the only ones who can back up how well humans and Cybertronians can relate to each other."

Hound turned to grin at his lover. "Which means you'd be speaking out for them with me. Y'know, since you have first-servo experience and all."

Mirage gave him a mock glare. "If you think I'm too embarrassed to admit publicly that I interfaced with a human, you're wrong. And besides. We WOULDN'T be the only others to understand."

Hound's grin slid off his faceplate, replaced by confusion.

"What? What do you mean, someone ELSE on board has interfaced with humans? How do YOU know?"

The spy smirked. "Mr. Invisibility, remember? I never stayed to watch as long as you, but I know about Tracks and Raoul. And the other day Bumblebee admitted to me that he and Spike had once gotten drunk and experimented. He wanted to swap notes a little… just to be sure he wasn't alone in the whole thing."

And Hound had thought he knew the score better after his experience. He sat with his mouth hanging slightly open.

His lover patted his arm in a 'there there' sort of gesture as he looked back over at the group in the corner where Prowl had gone to settle down.

Apparently, he wasn't quite the pioneer he'd thought he was.

If anything, he was a little behind the curve.


End file.
